Tech giants join call for funding U.S. chip production

Re:Tech giants join call for funding U.S. chip production by coredog64 on Tuesday May 11, 2021 @03:25PM (#27122369)

I used to work for OnSemi, so take the following for what you will.

On sells a variety of components -- some are completely commodity and are produced in super cheap fabs in Malaysia. Some are mid-tier and are (or were) made at fabs in Phoenix or Pocatello. And some are high-end and come out of the Gresham fabs that they bought when LSI went fabless.

There's value in producing the commodity stuff. Obviously they're not going to enter a bidding war with TSMC for cutting edge manufacturing equipment to make commodity voltage regulators. But they still invest in fab technology at the lower end.

I don't think ONN is particularly special in this space. They had plenty of competitors and they worked to distinguish themselves on cost, depth of their product catalog, and ability to execute.

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Re:Tech giants join call for funding U.S. chip production by kingsuper20 on Tuesday May 11, 2021 @04:08PM (#27122864)

By having in-country fabs, have you just pushed the problem to some sort of precursor materials or parts?

For that matter, I wonder how a government-subsidized fab could compete with an old overseas fab making lower end parts that has been long-ago paid for?

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